2^136.279.841-1. This figure may not seem significant at first glance, but it’s the world’s largest known prime number. Finding it was quite challenging. In fact, it took researchers six years to discover it. Its predecessor was found in 2018.
GIMPS. The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) is a collaborative project aimed at discovering Mersenne prime numbers, which have the form 2^n-1. The initiative utilizes the collective computing power of thousands of “volunteer” computers around the world and engages them in intensive calculations to identify new primes. Primes are numbers that can only be divided by themselves and one (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, and so on).
Eureka! The man behind the new prime number, also known as M136279841, is Luke Durant, a former Nvidia employee and an active participant in the GIMPS project. He created a “distributed supercomputer” by harnessing the power of underutilized GPUs in the cloud, allowing him to access these resources at a minimal cost. His setup involved GPUs located in data centers across 17 different countries.
Transitioning from CPU to GPU. Until recently, the search for Mersenne prime numbers primarily utilized main processors in conjunction with the Prime95 app. However, Mihai Preda, another contributor to the project, developed GpuOwL, a tool that leverages GPUs instead of CPUs for these calculations.
GPUs offer significantly more power than general-purpose processors, greatly accelerating the computation process. GIMPS founder George Woltman later enhanced the tool, while computer expert Aaron Blosser optimized its performance on servers.
Ultimately, Durant, Preda, Woltman, and Blosser share credit for discovering the world’s largest prime number to date.
Only 52 Mersenne primes identified. You might expect that the combined power of computers and GPUs would yield a greater number of prime discoveries. However, searching for these enormous primes is challenging and demands substantial computing resources. Nonetheless, the GIMPS project has become a significant player in this field, responsible for the last 18 discoveries.
You can also find a Mersenne prime number. The GIMPS initiative is actively seeking new volunteers who are willing to share their computing power when their computers are idle. All you need to do is download and install a small program that runs whenever you’re not using your computer.
A (symbolic) prize for participating. If you discover a new Mersenne prime number, you could receive a reward of $3,000. However, the prize increases significantly to $50,000 for the person who finds the first prime number with at least 100 million decimal digits.
Prime numbers are fascinating. Discovering large prime numbers isn’t just a curiosity. As reported by Ars Technica, they have practical applications too. For instance, they’re crucial in RSA encryption. When someone wants to receive a message protected by this algorithm, they publish the product of two large prime numbers as their “public key.” This makes it extremely difficult for anyone to decrypt the message using brute force methods.
Image | Antoine Dautry
Related | The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Is Awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper
View 0 comments